


Do You Yield?

by Denzer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Badass Rey, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, F/M, Jedi Ben Solo, POV Rey (Star Wars), Protective Ben Solo, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey Skywalker, Soft Ben Solo, Young Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23304472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denzer/pseuds/Denzer
Summary: Ben has handed himself to the Resistance with the intention of training Rey. This is their training first session.Taken from a fic I abandoned when I realised where the ending was going... and therefore decided not to publish because it was too sad.But I still loved how Ben is in this first session, (it's basically just sexual tension wrapped in a lightsaber fight!) so I thought I would share it.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29





	Do You Yield?

“She needs a sparring partner.”

Finn looks up quickly, manages to frown while keeping his eyes wide.

“And I suppose you wanna volunteer?”

Ren gives a short nod and Finn turns to Rey but he swallows whatever quip he had when he sees her face.

“We do fine,” Finn tells her but it sounds like a question and she sighs and looks to the General.

“Ren has a point. I can't learn to fight using the force if I can't practice with someone who can use it too.”

“Absolutely not.”

Everyone in the room turns to look at Leia. No-one has ever heard her speak so sharply.

There is a dark, low sigh from Ren's side of the table.

“She has no training. She is being hunted by four of the most capable force-users in the galaxy and she's unprotected... _Arm_ her.”

“She has Luke's lightsaber.”

Neither of them is looking at the other, both fighting the empty table before them. The air is crackling.

“Which she can barely use! She needs a staff-”

“I used it well enough on StarKiller,”

Rey has said it calmly but there is a swift intake of breath around her and she wishes she could have stopped herself.

She straightens her shoulders.

“I'll agree to one session, to begin with. Poe, Finn, you will accompany us – set your blasters to stun.”

Nobody moves. Rey looks at the wall above Ren's head.

“Set your blasters to kill.” Leia's voice is soft and she stands before the people around her can comment.

He looks at the table but Rey can see the shift in his expression, can feel it sifting through the bond.

Fury, pain, then nothing.

When he looks at her, he may as well wear a mask.

“Tomorrow? Sunrise?”

“Agreed.”

She cannot sleep. She tosses and sometimes when she opens her eyes he is there and she has to work hard to block him from her mind.

The third time she wakes, he is sitting at the edge of her bed, pinching the bridge of his nose. She scrambles back and closes her eyes, focusing on shutting him out.

“You have to stop thinking... about me, about tomorrow. It's opening the bond. Don't try to sleep. Meditate instead. It'll help.”

“ _I'm_ not doing this!” she hisses at him and his shoulders jerk as he huffs air out in sharp amusement. Then he is gone, and she is more angry than she has ever felt before.

In the morning, they leave the base to train in the secondary concourse, far from the main facility and prying eyes.

The forest around them is still gloomy. They are silent as they trudge through the trees.

Rey is exhausted but there is a shaking in her stomach that is giving her an anxious, jumpy energy. She snaps at Finn when he asks how she is. She doesn't speak apart from that.

Four guards accompany them and struggle to maintain their positions surrounding Ren as they cross the rough terrain. She doesn't know how he manages to walk so erectly with his hands restrained behind him.

In the training room, the guards take position at the four corners of the white canvas, blasters held loosely at their sides.

Finn and Poe stand at the top of the space but their blasters are holstered until the restraints are released and Ren is given a saber. Not his. That's gone.

She can feel the loss of it aching inside him when he takes the substitute.

Then the wall clamps down and she feels nothing from him at all. She's not sure which of them has blocked the other.

He walks to the centre of the room, waits.

Rey steps onto the mats. As she passes Poe and Finn, she doesn't look at them, until Poe speaks.

“Take him down a notch,” he tells her and she barely meets his eye, nods.

Her legs feel light beneath her, like they might crumble or lift her high into the air. The fine hair on her forearms is raised.

She comes to stand before him but he won't meet her eye until Luke's saber thrums in her hand. She has activated it on impulse.

He doesn't activate his. Instead, he nods and pins her with a look.

“When it gets too much, yield, and I'll stop.”

She glares.

Then he steps back, a defensive stance she has seen in the manuals. She mirrors him. He ignites his saber and swirls it across his body.

The energy coming from him shifts. This is where he is comfortable. Here, he is in control. He moves back further, circles her.

Rey turns to keep him dead in her line of sight.

He circles again then stops abruptly and lowers his lightsaber a fraction.

“You can't win a battle if you don't move from a defensive position. Attack me.”

He may as well have rolled his eyes and Rey feels heat in her cheeks. Anger licks the inside of her mouth. She lets it fuel her.

The lightsabers flare against each other and he parries three of her strikes in quick succession.

He moves easily, stepping out of her line, turning smoothly and forcing her to realign before the side of her body is exposed. Somehow each time she runs at him, she loses ground.

It is some minutes before she begins to feel her muscles heat, the first sign of fatigue when he has not even broken a sweat. He sees her frustration and takes a step back, lowers his sword.

“Hold it lower, closer to the ground, but change the angle to cover your upper body. Your arms won't tire as fast.”

She nodded swiftly and complied, felt the easing immediately.

“I'm right-handed, so approach from my right where you can, it will be more open-”

She ran before he'd finished speaking and this time when he parried, he knocked her back a few steps, ramping up the energy of his thrust.

It was like a signal had been lit in her brain and the muscles of her face relaxed in response. Something hardened inside her and her stomach settled instantly.

Here was the fight, she felt it rising through her.

She swirled at him, slipped under his parry and twirled back behind him, forcing him to twist his position. Her feet moved of their own accord, she swung and clashed and pulled back, tried again, relentless, trying for an opening, trying to force him back.

Minutes passed this way and she did not notice the time until he ran a quick hand over his forehead pushing back hair that had fallen there. His face had changed. The impassive mask had lifted. There was energy there now, intent and focused.

“Do you need a minute?” she said and there was triumph in her voice already.

The corner of his lip moved and he raised his arms to the side, angled his body into a shrug. She ran at him again, wilder now, confident. Her mouth was pulled back, a grimace, or a smile.

A moment later, he had pushed his saber against the hilt of hers, twisted so it was locked between them, over her head. He dragged his weight against it, forced her to one knee.

She yelled, wordless, as her muscles screamed, pushing to keep the swords above her.

In the background, she heard the click of a blaster arming. She turned her head to growl in frustration at Poe and he lowered his gun.

When she turned back, Ben was watching her, leaning toward her, his face calm, as if holding her there was not bothering him in the slightest.

“I'm stronger than you, physically. You cannot hold this position. But you have an advantage you're not using. Think.”

She took a breath, angry and rebellious, and pushed as hard as she could against his arms. Her breath left her body in another exerted yell.

But instead of pushing the swords from her, the sabers came toward her, inching closer to her face.

He was too strong.

She ducked and forced the clashing beams to her left, then pushed herself in the opposite direction, spinning to her feet.

She brought her weapon down on his unprotected side with a roar.

He twisted his arms high and her saber was wrenched from her hand. It flew to the corner of the room.

His own weapon immediately de-ignited and he took a half a step back.

There was a flare of power from him, she could feel it at the edge of her mind and she caught on to it, pulled it into herself and brought her palm out.

The power she had found shot down her arm and toward his chest in a wave.

His body left the ground, flew back toward the centre of the mat. He landed heavily and called the lightsaber to him before falling back onto his elbows.

Rey called Luke's saber and ignited it, stood over him with the point of it trained on his torso. His chest was heaving and he looked up at her in surprise.

“Do you yield?” she said and his mouth fell open.

She was smiling at him.

How had she not felt a smile so wide until he'd reacted to it?

His face suddenly swirled before her and the room seemed to move and twist. She brought her hand to her head, felt a warmth run in two lines from her nose over her lips. When she took her hand away there was blood. She sat heavily before him.

“What are you doing to me?” she locked eyes with him and his eyebrows raised. He sat up with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Poe and Finn ran to them, blasters trained on Ren.

“You siphoned. Used my own Force energy against me. Smart. It weakens your opponent and you lose nothing.”

She felt a thrill that she stamped out as soon as it buzzed in her stomach.

“I don't understand. Why am I bleeding?”

He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at where Finn was looking between them. When Ren looked back at her the impassive mask was back and only then did she recognise the hint of a smile that had been there. He sat up and rested an elbow on his bent knee.

“My energy is darker than yours,” he explained, a small gesture with his long fingers, at his own chest, at hers. “You'll get used to it. It won't always feel like that.”

His voice was soft.

She stood, fast.

“This was a mistake.”

He closed his mouth firmly. He made no move to stand.

“Was this your plan? – teach me how to use the dark side? Make me think I need it, to fight?”

He answered quietly, a deep quiet rumble that she found herself leaning toward.

“You seem adept at it. It takes months to learn to siphon. You did it without even knowing what it was.”

She leaned down so her face was inches above his.

“I. Will Never. Turn.”

He answered quietly again, no hint of emotion in his features.

“I never asked you to.”

She stood straighter and walked toward the door.

“Restrain him. Take him back to the brig,” She threw the order over her shoulder at the guards.

She stopped then, and turned back to him.

A moment passed, during which she heard both Poe and Finn inhale at the same time.

“Again, tomorrow?”

He nodded once, a sharp gesture, and she raised her chin before spinning on her heel.


End file.
